Occupy Wall Street celebrates 1-year anniversary with concert

Protesters march through Manhattan in New York city on Saturday, Sept. 15. The movement is celebrating its one-year anniversary. (Source: CNN)

(RNN) - Occupy Wall Street turns one year old Monday, Sept. 17, and organizers are celebrating the controversial movement's anniversary with a concert in New York City.

The concert is taking place on Sunday, one day before the official anniversary, and expected to attend is Tom Morello, the former guitarist of Grammy-winning rock-rap group Rage Against the Machine. Also expected to attend are Jello Biafra, the former lead singer for punk rock band Dead Kennedys; Kool A.D. of hip-hop group Das Racist; and several other groups, including OWS's own "Guitarmy," a group in which anybody with a guitar is free to join.

Morello has been an active supporter of the movement since it began attracting the nation's media last year. He made several appearances at the original encampment in Manhattan's Zucotti Park before New York mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to evacuate the protesters in November 2011, and also led a Guitarmy march along Fifth Avenue on May 1, earlier this year.

The OWS concert will be in the middle of several organized events, including "Know Your Rights" training sessions, dialogues on civil disobedience, and other protests and rallies.

A planned form of disobedience will be to "disrupt traffic throughout the Financial District by creating a swirl of roving intersection occupations surrounding the Stock Exchange," according to the OWS's anniversary website. The stated goal of this plan is to imagine a "world without Wall Street."

On Saturday, protestors made their way through Manhattan, ending at Zuccotti Park, and several people were arrested for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

OWS has tried different tactics to sustain itself as a movement, including coordinating protests for different causes and creating an archive of the movement's short but extensive history. OWS protestors even made themselves known at the two recent political conventions. But for those who are not directly involved with OWS or any of its branches, it could seem like the movement is over and only photos of police officers pepper-spraying college students is left.

The only remnants of OWS in the Financial District today are a few young people in dirty, tattered clothing lying or sleeping on the sidewalk, sometimes begging for change. Today's OWS as a visible movement is a far cry from the crowded park complete with a library, full-service kitchen of free food, and hundreds of people who wanted to be heard, or at least be seen.

That visibility, however, might not be important anymore, according to Nathan Schneider, editor of WagingNonviolence.org. Writing in The Nation, Schneider said OWS's success was to allow like-minded people to meet and gain experience in organizing for a cause.

"People organizing for economic justice—especially young people—now know one another," Schneider said. "They've practiced direct democracy in general assemblies and risked their bodies in direct action. They're talking with each other over networks that they created themselves, as well as traveling together and building their capacity for future action."